Study On The Humiliating Punishment Of Criminal Law In Ancient China

The humiliating punishment of criminal law in ancient China has a very long history. The earliest can be traced back to clan custom of primitive society. Its emergence and development has a profound political background, ideological background and cultural background.The humiliating punishment applied under the influence of many factors, such as the victim’s status, gender and nationalities. Ancient ruler’s personal will also play a very important role in humiliating punishment’s application. During the thousands of year’s development and inheritance of ancient humiliating punishment, the needs for political and economic development have played a decisive role in its evolution. There was no class in the period of primitive society, and the social conflict was not intense at that time, just rely on the pure humiliating punishment to symbolic punishment was enough to make the victim feel shame. With the development of social productive forces and the production of private ownership, class arises at the historic moment. After entering the slavery society, the contradictions between slave owners class and the slave class increasingly intensified, rulers need a more powerful punishment to maintain social stability, and consolidate the rule. In the process of evolution of the humiliating punishment, it has been combined with the corporal punishment and the death penalty, and its fate is closely combined with the corporal punishment. The kinds of the humiliating punishment gradually improved, and has developed to the top with the establishment of the Five Penalties of slavery. After entering the feudal society, with the repeatedly abolition of corporal punishment and the establishment of Five Penalties of feudalism, the development of the humiliating punishment once stepped into the trough. However, it can still be seen both in the law and the extrajudicial punishment of all dynasties.During the sharp period of the national contradictions and class contradictions, some abolished humiliating punishments even recovery again, which means historical regression in some degree. Until the end of the Qing Dynasty, the humiliating punishment was finally abolished,and completely disappeared in the laws of our country.Ancient humiliating punishment often attached to corporal punishment which had a cruel nature. It punished the criminals depended on the body damage to insult their personality. Ancient humiliating punishment does not conform to the modern rule of law concept of humanitarianism of punishment and the criminal human rights, which lead to its abandoned by the times and criticized by many scholars. However, the ancient humiliating punishment also exist some reasonable factors. After eliminating the parts of cruel corporal punishment and insult on criminal personality, the sense of shame as the core of the disciplinary education is its rational kernel. Modern humiliating punishment is based on the sense of shame, which also reflects the economic and validity principle of punishment and meets the needs of the social development, besides, it can cope with the increasingly prominent drawbacks of the punishment of imprisonment to a certain extent and make up the shortage of imprisonment penalty.The humiliating punishment also has enlightenment significance to our country’s jail correct. It can be more effective to correct the behavior and ideas of criminals with utilizing the criminals’ sense of shame on the basis of not insult their personality.